“Willingly,” he said.  “This is no great affair, but I do it to amuse myself, and it will be pleasant for the ladies.”  He descended and gave his hammer to the visitor.  Claude set to work on the frame, while the other went under the stone arches and brought back a roll of canvas,—­part of an old tent, by the look of it.

“Un heritage des Boches,” he explained unrolling it upon the grass.  “I found it among their filth in the cellar, and had the idea to make a pavilion for the ladies, as our trees are destroyed.”  He stood up suddenly.  “Perhaps you have come to see the ladies?”

“Plus tard.”

Very well, the boy said, they would get the pavilion done for a surprise for Mlle. Olive when she returned.  She was down in the town now, visiting the sick people.  He bent over his canvas again, measuring and cutting with a pair of garden shears, moving round the green plot on his knees, and all the time singing.  Claude wished he could understand the words of his song.

While they were working together, tying the cloth up to the frame, Claude, from his elevation, saw a tall girl coming slowly up the path by which he had ascended.  She paused at the top, by the boxwood hedge, as if she were very tired, and stood looking at them.  Presently she approached the ladder and said in slow, careful English, “Good morning.  Louis has found help, I see.”

Claude came down from his perch.

“Are you Mlle. de Courcy?  I am Claude Wheeler.  I have a note of introduction to you, if I can find it.”

She took the card, but did not look at it.  “That is not necessary.  Your uniform is enough.  Why have you come?”

He looked at her in some confusion.  “Well, really, I don’t know!  I am just in from the front to see Colonel James, and he is in Paris, so I must wait over a day.  One of the staff suggested my coming up here—­I suppose because it is so nice!” he finished ingenuously.

“Then you are a guest from the front, and you will have lunch with Louis and me.  Madame Barre is also gone for the day.  Will you see our house?” She led him through the low door into a living room, unpainted, uncarpeted, light and airy.  There were coloured war posters on the clean board walls, brass shell cases full of wild flowers and garden flowers, canvas camp-chairs, a shelf of books, a table covered by a white silk shawl embroidered with big butterflies.  The sunlight on the floor, the bunches of fresh flowers, the white window curtains stirring in the breeze, reminded Claude of something, but he could not remember what.

“We have no guest room,” said Mlle. de Courcy.  “But you will come to mine, and Louis will bring you hot water to wash.”